We cover up to battle the mosquitos that are still at war with us and enjoy the sun rise. Not surprising, we don't hang around camp too long. I forgot to mention that we rode 210km on the first day, 100km on tarmac.

The light is outrageous as we ascend a drainage out of camp.

Then through a pass and down into another drainage. This is a main route so the road is fairly wide.

Continuing down we came across a stream where I thought I'd take a quick bath.

We rested for a moment after and took off.

We were starting to see herds of animals which the nomads tend. Horses are used for milking, eating and riding.

Buuuuuurrrt found this bug along side of the road. Wild.

Next we come into a very small village where we decide we should stock up on some provisions. This is our first interaction with any sort of market. We cant read any signs so we just have to stick our heads in and see what's inside. This works fine. We find some food and learn how to say water in Mongolian.

All of a sudden, these guys spot us and coming skidding up to us and stop. The guy says to us in very bad english "happy birthday!" I'm sure it was the only english phrase he knew but it was totally weird because it was Buuuuurrrrrts birthday!!! Too freaking funny!

We filled the bikes with gas, crossed a big river on a bridge and continued on. We found it easy to find enough gas stations. Our Shineray "Mustangs" did exceptional on gas milage with 60 to 80 mpg and they had a 3.5 gallon tank. That gives them damn good range.

Combine heading for the wheat fields.

So, being on a main route, we would see an occasional truck hauling goods. Talk about a slow pace for these guys. Overall, the big trucks were not an issue to ride with. We really didn't see many. Not much traffic at all as a matter of a fact, even on the more used routes. Polar opposite of what we experienced on the roads in India.

It's Buuuuurrrrt's birthday and he makes us pull over and have a beer and a shot of Vodka. We'd climbed up to a ridge with a great view.

We're in no hurry and don't have anywhere we have to be so we just yuck it up a bit then move on when we're ready.

We pass by the town of Bulgan which is one of the larger ones we went through.

On the way out there was a cop doing some sort of traffic stop checking everyone out. We showed him our passports and he starts walking around the bikes and notices we don't have any license plates. Did I mention how we decided not to register them? Of course, we have no clue what he's saying to us and he has no clue what we're saying. I show him the receipts to the bikes and he starts repeating something and holding up two fingers. We think he's saying we have two weeks to get plates. That was our understanding of what the laws are for registering bikes. He lets us go. We're on tarmac again for a short section.

When we feel like we've ridden enough for the day we pull off the main road and climb into the hills.

The trees are Larch. Their needles turn yellow and drop in the fall. This was just starting to happen a bit up here in the more northern part of the country. It's totally fine to burn the wood, at least the dead stuff.